How does spirituality manifest in family caregivers of terminally ill cancer patients? A qualitative secondary analysis (original) (raw)
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Spiritual needs experienced by the patient's family caregiver under Oncology palliative care
Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem
Objective: To understand the spiritual needs of the patients' family caregiver under Oncology palliative care. Method: A descriptive, qualitative study with 20 family caregivers of patients hospitalized in an Oncology palliative unit. The data were collected through a phenomenological interview, and analyzed by the method of Amadeo Giorgi supported in the Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Results: The categories were unveiled: "Spirituality as a foundation for life"; "Spiritual needs sublimated by the family caregiver"; and "Care expected by the nurse". Conclusion: Family caregivers appropriate spirituality as a coping strategy and meeting the purpose and meaning of the moment experienced. It is profitable for the nurse to contemplate the spiritual needs of the caregiver in order to provide a guided assistance in the humanization of care and comprehensive care. Therefore, there is a need for new studies that address this dimension to ...
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
Context: Spiritual care refers to practices and rituals addressing spiritual/religious concerns. It supports coping with loss and finding hope, meaning, and peace. Although integral to palliative care, its implementation is challenging. Objective: To understand an Australian cohort of patients' and caregivers' perspectives about experiencing and optimizing spiritual care in the context of advanced illness. Methods: Patients and caregivers of patients with ≤12 month prognosis were recruited from a broader spiritual study via criterion sampling and agreed to opt-in interviews. Participants from an Australian, metropolitan health service received a spiritual care definition and were interviewed. Transcripts were analysed using qualitative description. Results: Thirty patients (17 male; mean 70-years) and 10 caregivers (6 male; mean 58.9years) participated. Twenty-seven identified as Christian and 10 had no religion. Participants described multifaceted and contested beliefs about spirituality. Many queried the tangibility of spirituality but all valued respectful staff who affirmed personhood, that is, each individual's worth, especially when care exceeded expectations. They also resonated with positive organizational and environmental tones that improved holistic wellbeing. Participants stressed the importance of the hospital's welcoming context and skilled care, which comforted and reassured. Conclusion: While many patients and caregivers did not resonate with the term, "spiritual care", all described how the hospital's hospitality could affirm their values and strengthen coping. The phrase "spiritual care and hospitality" may optimally articulate and guide care in similar, pluralist inpatient palliative care contexts, recognising that such care encompasses an interplay of generalist and specialist pastoral care staff, and organizational and environmental qualities.
Background: Spirituality can give meaning to life, providing support and guidance in complex situations. Despite its importance in palliative care, the role of spirituality for family caregivers of patients under exclusive palliative care has not received enough attention in the literature. We aimed to address the correlation between spirituality and the emotional burden of family members of patients under exclusive palliative care. Methods: This transversal study was conducted in a tertiary private teaching hospital, in São Paulo, Brazil. The study comprised family members of patients receiving palliative care exclusively. Only one caregiver who cared for the patient for at least 2 months was invited to participate. Family members answered the following questionnaires: WHOQOL spirituality, religiousness and personal beliefs (SRPB), Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). They were excluded if patients were residing in a Long Stay Institution. Continuous variables were expressed by median and quartiles and analyzed with the Kruskal-Wallis test with Muller-Dunn posttest adjusted by Bonferroni or with the Mann-Whitney test for two groups. We used multivariable linear regression to identify independent predictors of caregiver burden. Results: A total of 178 family members were interviewed in a median of 8 [4-13.25] days after patient admission. Almost 40% of families presented high score of burden. Faith and Meaning in Life were the facets that scored the highest, with a median of 4.50 [4.00-5.00] for both facets. There was an inverse correlation between Zarit score and all of the WHOQOL-SRPB facets, indicating that the lower the spirituality, the greater the emotional burden. Inner peace was the strongest protective factor associated with burden. Conclusions: Psycho-socio-spiritual interaction can improve the coping ability of family caregivers of patients under exclusive palliative care, addressing a critical gap in the provision of holistic palliative care services.
Psychological impairments burden and spirituality in caregivers of terminally ill cancer patients
European journal of cancer care, 2017
The role of spirituality on the psychological health was mostly investigated through studies conducted in terminally ill patients. However, there are not studies investigating the role of religious and spiritual beliefs on psychological state and on burden dimensions in caregivers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between spirituality, burden, and psychological state in caregivers of terminally ill cancer patients. Two hundred caregivers of terminally ill patients with cancer were interviewed using Prolonged Grief Disorder 12 (PG-12), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D), Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) and System of Belief Inventory (SBI-15R). The caregiver burden was positively correlated with anxiety, depression and PG-12 scores. The intrinsic spirituality was a significant predictor of the time-dependence burden (positively associated); and of the emotional burden (negatively associated). In caregivers of terminall...
Family Relations And Spiritual Response To Palliative Care: A Review Of Literature
International Archives of Medicine, 2016
Introduction: It is common to prioritize the critical patient care in detrainment of the caregivers, but this usual behavior must change, maintaining the family members as an extension of the care given to patients. Results and Discussion: Spiritual wellbeing is a complement to all health strands united with physical and psychosocial status, they must be put into the routine of practicing medicine on end of life care in congruence with a good communication. Conclusion: At all levels of assistance in palliative care the family must be included, therefore clinicians shall have information on how to deal with them and developing activities to improve communication.
Spirituality and Cancer: a Qualitative Study
Psycho-Oncologie, 2019
Aims: Patients suffering from cancer are often confronted with an awareness of their own finiteness and with the fact that their life is now ruled by the cancer. This existential upheaval can be accompanied by spiritual “work” which contributes to the adjustment to the disease and to the conditions of the end of life. Spirituality can be defined as a process through which individuals seek for and give meaning to their life, feel connected to the self, to others, at the present moment and in what is sacred. Few studies in France have studied spirituality in the context of cancer. So, the aim of our research was to identify and to study the role of spiritual components in the experience of cancer.Procedure: We carried out 15 semi-directed interviews with patients at the medical oncology and palliative care department at the CHU in Timone (Marseille). A double analysis was performed: 1) a lexicographical analysis and 2) a thematic content analysis of the most typical interviews from th...
A Thematic Review of the Spirituality Literature within Palliative Care
Journal of Palliative Medicine, 2006
Research related to spirituality and health has developed from relative obscurity to a thriving field of study over the last 20 years both within palliative care and within health care in general. This paper provides a descriptive review of the literature related to spirituality and health, with a special focus on spirituality within palliative and end-of-life care. CINAHL and MEDLINE were searched under the keywords "spirituality" and "palliative." The review revealed five overarching themes in the general spirituality and health literature: (1) conceptual difficulties related to the term spirituality and proposed solutions; (2) the relationship between spirituality and religion; (3) the effects of spirituality on health; (4) the subjects enrolled in spirituality-related research; and (5) the provision of spiritual care. While the spirituality literature within palliative care shared these overarching characteristics of the broader spirituality and health literature, six specific thematic areas transpired: (1) general discussions of spirituality in palliative care; (2) the spiritual needs of palliative care patients; (3) the nature of hope in palliative care; (4) tools and therapies related to spirituality; (5) effects of religion in palliative care; and (6) spirituality and palliative care professionals. The literature as it relates to these themes is summarized in this review. Spirituality is emerging largely as a concept void of religion, an instrument to be utilized in improving or maintaining health and quality of life, and focussed predominantly on the "self" largely in the form of the patient. While representing an important beginning, the authors suggest that a more integral approach needs to be developed that elicits the experiential nature of spirituality that is shared by patients, family members, and health care professionals alike.